WENDELL — The lone eastern Wake County Public Schools’ parent to speak at a hearing on the school reassignment plan Thursday appealed to the school board to bring more magnet programs to the eastern side of the county.

“Please consider making Knightdale High School a magnet school,” said Allison Thompson, of Knightdale. “People are leaving every day because of the problem the school board has created. …I feel that eastern Wake is put to the side.”

Thompson was also at the hearing at East Wake High School to argue for her children to stay at Lockhart Elementary, a year-round school. The reassignment plan will fill 10 new schools with 26,771 students over the next three years and shuttle students to make room for newcomers.

It calls for Thompson’s children to move to Knightdale Elementary School, a traditional-calendar school.

“We were reassigned to Lockhart two years ago and I was not in favor of going to a year-round school, but now we love the year-round calendar,” she said. “The problem is now we don’t want to leave.”

Thompson said under the plan her node’s year-round option, the new Lake Myra Elementary, is too far away from her home.

Thompson was one of 27 parents who took three minutes each to make arguments to a full auditorium.

More than 100 Lacy Elementary School parents from Raleigh turned out to argue for their nodes to remain at Lacy.

The plan calls for children from some nodes currently assigned to Lacy, off Ridge Road, to be transferred to Stough Elementary on Edwards Mill Road and some to be transferred to Root Elementary in North Hills.

The Lacy-Stough-Root debate dominated the hearing. The parents from both schools were polite, with Stough parents hoping to welcome Lacy parents and allay their fears.

Concerns centered on not having a high percentage of free and reduced lunch students at either school.

The reassignment proposal is based on the work of six administrators with input from 100 people on impact teams. It was released in November.

The Wake County Schools Department of Growth Management then held five community engagement meetings to hear from the public about the plan.

The first meeting on Nov. 20 was held at Knightdale High School. It was well-attended by eastern Wake parents.

After the community engagement meetings, the staff of growth management revised the plan.

The revised plan was presented to the board in December.

“Now it’s in their hands,” said Wake County Schools Director of Communication Greg Thomas.

The board will likely vote on reassignments at its meeting Feb. 3, Thomas said.